Overview of systemic treatment of bladder cancer and results with M-VAC therapy

Cytotoxic chemotherapy is playing an increasingly important role for advanced disease, and is being properly evaluated in prospective trials as neoadjuvant therapy. There has been no major undertaking to examine adjuvant treatment, and hopefully randomized studies will be started in the future. There is sparse data concerning the effectiveness of immunological agents for treatment of this tumor, and phase II efficacy studies are needed. Future studies will need to define more accurately the poor-risk group in whom new agents or regimens using a more intensive schedule, perhaps with G-CSF, can be explored as initial therapy.